In the Japanese tradition of Noh theater, genders and types are revealed through traditional and ritualized actions, and are coded within the costumes. In the case of this short-sleeved silk robe, or kosode, the auspicious symbols embroidered thereon indicate the types of characters by whom it might be worn. This embroidery technique, called karaori, first emerged during the Momoyama period (1573–1615 CE) and became commonplace and codified soon thereafter, even when it was rarely used in everyday clothing. The robe is decorated with wisteria flowers and fans with maple leaves, understood as spring and autumn flora, respectively. These motifs date back to the Heian period (c. 794–1185 CE) and are associated with ideals of Japanese feminine beauty, characterized by refinement, elegance, and sensitivity. Women’s patterns typically include softer, vegetal designs of the four seasons, in contrast to sharper, more geometric men’s designs, which might incorporate Buddhist symbols. Thus, the character represented by this robe would be a woman, though the actor depicting that character would be a man.

Women were excluded from participating in the Noh until the early 20th century, when they were allowed to practice it as a hobby. Although this robe was probably created in the 1920s, it is unlikely that it would have been worn by a female actor, as it was still rare for women to perform.

In the portrayal of female characters on the Noh stage, the audience was always acutely aware of the performer’s gender in contrast to the role he assumed. There was no attempt to trick the audience: for example, the jaw of a middle-aged actor would be visible under the mask of a beautiful, young woman. Specific instructions were written for these actors in treatises, such as those of Zeami, a writer and theorist of the Noh active from the late-14th to mid-15th century. He suggested that male actors hold fans or flowers; keep their hips and legs straight; and remain loose throughout the neck and face in order to evoke the sensitivity necessary to appear feminine. The movement of the body and the costume were crucial to the actor’s performance of a feminine role; this kosode helps to construct the image of a woman through shape, color, and motif.

Marielle Epstein, Wilson intern, SC ’18

Works Consulted

Denney, Joyce. “Noh Costume.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.

“Gender Crossings: Women in Noh.” On the Bridgeway, 22 Apr. 2014

Patterns and Poetry: Japanese No Play Robes from the Lucy Truman Aldrich Collection at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. 1993.

An in-game screen shot of Amaterasu and landscape (detail), “Okami,” displays many commonalities with the traditional subject matter and compostion of Japanese prints. Here, both subjects, bedecked with colorful symbols, face left, toward a waterfall and rocks. Overhead, the branches of a flowering cherry tree arch over each of them. The path created by the line of rats in Chikanobu’s work is echoed by the path to the right of the wolf. A sense of mystery and magic emanates from both images.

Imagine a world filled with beautiful landscapes, flowers, and people. Places where theater and dancing women in elaborate kimonos entertain as customers drink and tell tales of heroes and battles of the past. This vision of the world is Ukiyo-e or The Floating World. Ukiyo-e is a popular style of Japanese woodblock prints produced in Japan in the 17th to 19th centuries. Even today, Ukiyo-e continues to inspire new art forms of the 21st century. In particular, the graphical style of one video game, Okami, is heavily influenced by sumi-e (ink wash paintings) and Ukiyo-e. However, Okami and Ukiyo-e share more than just a common artistic style. Ukiyo-e and video games both went through a similar artistic evolution in that they grew out of purely commercial ventures. Neither was highly valued as art for its time.

Ukiyo-e prints emerged in the 17th century mainly as a profit-making venture: the result of technological advances. The development of printing using woodblocks allowed publishers to produce books and art at an extraordinarily faster and cheaper rate than ever before. To put things in perspective, one print cost only as much as a bowl of soup. These prints were primarily aimed at the masses and served as a form of advertisement, government propaganda, and entertainment. Video games, too, emerged as a result of advances in technology—in this case, the development of computers. The games serve mainly as a commercial entertainment product. Yet, they have also been recognized as art. In fact, the U.S government formally recognizes video games as an art form, though most of the general public does not.[1] This was true of 17th century Japanese audiences as well. Prints were not considered to be high art by the Japanese. When, by 1968, Ukiyo-e prints had faded in popularity in Japan, it was the Europeans, specifically the impressionist painters, who, in the 1870s, were first to recognize their value. Not until the Europeans began to see merit in Japanese prints did the Japanese start to recognize their worth.

Moreover, Okami and Ukiyo-e are linked even more inextricably. Graphically, Okami is grounded in the artistic styles of Ukiyo-e and sumi-e. For example, instead of a realistic aesthetic, Clover Studio (creators of Okami) created a game that would resemble a painting. Heightening that effect, the player paints as a key function of the game using one of the primary elements of the game, the celestial brush. With this brush, the player creates patterns on the screen, which then translate as the various powers of the protagonist, Amaterasu. Creating a / pattern would slash an enemy while an O pattern would make a cherry blossom tree bloom.

Okami’s plot draws on various elements of Japanese folklore and Shinto religion, just as Japanese woodblock prints did. Amaterasu, the protagonist of Okami, is the sun goddess of the Shinto faith, personified as a white wolf in the game. She helps the hapless Susanoo (the Shinto storm god) slay the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi. The depiction and retelling of Japanese legends was a staple in Ukiyo-e prints, used as entertainment and as a way of perpetuating beloved stories. Okami is a modern-day extension of this same practice, transforming classical Japanese legends into a form modern audiences find relevant.

Today, Ukiyo-e prints are prized. Routinely exhibited at many prominent museums all around the world, they are also highly valued monetarily. Perhaps the most famous print is Hokusai’s Kanagawa Oki Nami Ura (Under the Wave off Kanagawa), which Christie’s sold for $68,000.[2] Museums collect these pieces in great numbers, with the largest private collection, totaling over 100,000 prints, at the Ukiyo-e Museum in Japan. At Scripps alone, thanks to the efforts of Professor Bruce Coats, the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery has a collection of 2,400 prints, with more continually being added. Scripps’ collection of Japanese prints is a popular highlight of the Gallery’s collection. Japanese prints make up almost a quarter of the entire collection, which began in 1949 as a gift to the College from Mary Wig Johnson. Since then, the Gallery has held numerous exhibitions featuring the print collection, most recently in 2012 with Genji’s World and the Chikanobu exhibition in 2006. The Gallery is currently curating an exhibition on Noh theater prints that will open in 2016.

Though not held in the same regard as Ukiyo-e, there is a growing appreciation for video games as an art form in the United States. For example, the venerable Smithsonian recently curated the exhibition, The Art of Video Games.[3] In addition, the Microsoft Theater hosted Distant Worlds in 2015. This concert featured the game music for the popular video game franchise, Final Fantasy. Grammy winner, Arnie Roth, conducted the LA Philharmonic for the performance.[4] These may be indications that, just as it took the Japanese time to appreciate the value of Ukiyo-e, one day in the not-too-distant future, the art world may well recognize the aesthetic value of video games.

The correct use of the celestial brush and a withered peach tree…

Blooms!

[1] Seth Schiesel, “Supreme Court Ruled; Now Games Have a Duty,” The New York Times, last modified June 28, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/arts/video-games/what-supreme-court-ruling-on-video-games-means.html?_r=0

A sort of jack-of-all-trades, the breadth of John T. Scott’s artistic mastery includes drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture; his subject matter ranges from self-portraiture to work with important political and social messages. Born John Turrell Scott in the Gentilly section of New Orleans in 1940 and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward, he attributes his first artistic experiences to his parents, learning basic carpentry from his father and embroidery from his mother. Scott continued his artistic education at Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically African American, Roman Catholic university, where he studied under painter Numa Rousseve and sculptor Frank Hayden. As Scott states, “The Vietnam War was an impetus to continue my education,” and so, in 1963 he began his studies at Michigan State University and completed his MFA in 1965. During his time at Michigan State, Scott worked as an assistant to his professors, sculptor Robert Weil and painter/printmaker Charles Pollock (the brother of Jackson Pollock). Scott returned to New Orleans in 1965, to serve as professor of fine arts at his alma mater. He continued to teach for 40 years, fleeing to Houston just before Hurricane Katrina. When asked whether he would return to New Orleans, Scott replied, “That’s the only home I know. I want my bones to be buried there. I belong there. I need New Orleans more than New Orleans needs me.” Scott, who had recently undergone a bilateral lung transplant, died in Houston on September 1, 2007 and never returned to his home town. However, as a vital member of the New Orleans art community, Scott left his mark on the city he so loved with public works, including, “Spirit Gates,” which marks the New Orleans Art Museum entrance and “Riverspirit,” a bas relief aluminum sculpture located on the Port of New Orleans building.

The local traditions of New Orleans, which draw on the African and Caribbean cultures, heavily influence Scott’s work. His Diddlie Bow Series, created between 1983 and 1984, demonstrates this influence. The brass and wooden sculptures are inspired by mythical African ritual and allude to the development of blues music, a cross between African rhythms and western harmonies. His method comes out of an improvisational thinking, which mirrors that of a jazz musician. During his creative process, Scott uses what he calls “jazz thinking” or “spherical thinking,” which enables him to make connections between entities and ideas that may be invisible to others. Perhaps due to its jazz-like construction, Scott’s work often contains movement either kinetic or implied. Many times the movement of a sculpture is communicated in the “self-choreographed movements required by the viewer to fully experience his art.” The desire to invoke movement continues through Scott’s main objective to “move someone’s spirit.”

While Scott attained national recognition during the 1980s, the years between 1992 and 2004 were his most prolific period. In 1992, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded Scott the MacArthur Fellowship, or “genius grant,” given to individuals who demonstrate exceptional creativity in their fields of endeavor. Relatively few artists have received this honor, especially those working in the field of visual arts outside of New York. Although the grant established Scott as one of the most innovative artists in the country, he was humble about the award and the exceptionally generous stipend, with which he built new studio space. Scott commented, “I’m glad somebody thinks I’m a genius, but it hasn’t changed my perception of myself…Coming out of a minority situation, it’s always been important for me to be centered and know what I am. Nobody made me credible except myself…” It is exactly this experience as a minority that Scott’s rich body of work addresses. His art brings attention to the national black arts scene and the political issues surrounding African American life and history. His work, Samella, perfectly demonstrates the pairing of the two subjects.

In Samella, a woodcut series of 80 prints, Scott depicts his friend and fellow native of New Orleans, Samella Lewis. A pioneer of African American art education, Lewis taught at Scripps College as a professor of art history and the humanities between 1968 and 1984. Scott created this print to celebrate Lewis’s 80th birthday. Framing three portraits of Lewis under a triple arch, he presents his longtime friend with both historical importance and intimate closeness. Similar to the movement Scott creates in his sculptures with vibrant colors and exuberant forms, the different angles of Lewis’ head give the print an implied movement that brings the portrait alive. The scenes of African American life below these portraits tie Lewis into a larger African American narrative. This piece speaks to the manner in which Scott incorporates the history and culture of the African American community throughout his work.

In 1936, Barbara Morgan joined creative forces with the modern dance choreographer Martha Graham to create a series of photographs that would redefine their respective disciplines. Born in Buffalo, Kansas on July 8, 1900, Morgan went on to study fine arts at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). The university’s curriculum, focusing on early Asian and European arts, exposed Morgan to different aesthetic ideologies.[1] Morgan integrated the Chinese philosophy of “rhythmic vitality” and the Japanese concept of esoragoto, which is the process of “emptying the mind and becoming one with the subject of art,” into her work.[2] These ideas would later play an integral role in Morgan’s collaboration with Graham. They worked together from 1936 to 1940 on a photography book entitled Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs (1941). It contained depictions of dances at their peak moments. Each image was imbued with symbolic meaning that transformed the dance into visual poetry. In order to achieve this goal, Morgan would watch multiple performances and, applying the theory of esoragoto, would then envision the most memorable moments. The climactic moments of the dance would be the focus of Morgan’s photographs that she would later recreate in the controlled environment of a studio.

One of the most notable photographs from this series is Martha Graham, Letter to the World (Swirl-Kick, Frontal View), which captures the culminating moment of the dance: the kick. The photograph captures the essence of Emily Dickinson’s poem, which bears the same title, and reveals the poet’s vulnerability in entrusting her work to her audience. Morgan’s image presents Graham embodying Dickinson’s character through the juxtaposition of energetic and retracted movements.[3] Graham’s face is caught in a moment of strained emotion, evident from her raised eyebrows and mouth ajar. The dancer’s arms illustrate the poet’s hesitant leap of faith, her right arm stretched above her with her palm spread wide, her left arm bent backward, her hand contorted inward. This contrast is also evident in the pose of her legs, one outstretched, the other bent. The moment that Morgan captured confines the figure in total darkness, while also highlighting the subtleties in her expressive actions.

In another effort to create striking contrast, Morgan, realizing the opportunity lighting offers to suggest meaning, used the “psychological lighting of dance motion” to enhance the emotion in her photographs.[4] Lighting had more than a utilitarian purpose and could symbolize divine inspiration. The lighting in Letter to the World illuminates Graham while creating rich shadows in the draping of her costume. Though the light draws attention to the subject, it also isolates her, thus allowing Morgan to connote an air of solitude. There is an extreme contrast between the black background and the paleness of the illuminated figure. Intense values heighten the emotion of the image and further reveal Dickinson’s isolation. The composition of the piece reflects a balance between negative and positive space. The emphasis on the contrast of light and energy results in a dramatic, impactful image. Morgan’s unique creative process and stark presentation enable viewers to see Graham’s work in a new light, revealing new layers of meaning and the possibility of fresh interpretation.

Ilse Bing’s photograph, Paris, Eiffel Tower with Branches, was taken in 1933 during the midst of her own self-discovery.

Bing was born into an upper middle class Jewish family in Germany in 1899. Her family encouraged her academic education as well as her development in the arts and music. She enrolled in University of Frankfurt for a degree in mathematics and physics but changed to pursue the history of art. Later, starting her doctorate with the German architect Friedrich Gilly in 1929, Bing bought a camera to illustrate her thesis. Soon, Bing was working with a German photojournalism magazine, and collaborating with avant-garde artists in the area. Deeply intrigued by the power of photography, Bing eventually gave up her thesis and moved to the center of avant-garde photography: Paris, France.

During her early years in Paris, Bing continued to work with German publications. While on commissions, she took photographs for her own artistic archives. Her collection of personal photographs comprised her first exhibition in 1931. After Hitler’s rise in power, Bing stopped working with German publications. Expanding her work to include commercial photography, she started photographing for fashion magazines such as Paris Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

In Paris, modern photography was developing with the technology that produced new opportunity for artistic creations. At the epicenter, self-taught artists like Man Ray, Germaine Krull and Florence Henri embraced the new photographic characteristics of unusual angles, extreme close-ups, and reflected, abstract geometric forms. Without the formalities of conventional compositions, the new style called modern photography allowed artists to simply capture the everyday visuals of living. Emerging alongside the modernist photographers in Paris, Bing found that by combining representation and abstraction she developed a talent for clear documentation of her world.

Embracing innovation and independence, Bing spent the decade pioneering her own style by expressing a blend of romanticism, surrealism, and symbolism. Her background in mathematics and physics gave her an eye for abstract spaces, unconventional angles, and geometric structures. Bing captured compelling visions of vanished lives, events, and places in our history. In Paris, Eiffel Tower with Branches, Bing uses the high vantage point to show the geometric lines in the architecture of the Eiffel Tower. The upward angle of the tower contrasts with the nearby branches as if taken glimpsed during a walk. In a more defined analysis, the junction of lines suggests Bing’s deliberate photographic frame, highlighting the mystery and allure of the particular spot.

As members of the Jewish religion, Bing and her husband, Konrad Wolff, a German pianist, fled Paris with the outbreak of World War II. After spending nine months in Marseille, a region in France under “Vichy” control at the time, the couple was able to leave for New York in 1941 with the help of the fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar. In the 1940s and 1950s, Bing continued experimenting with photographs using electronic flashes and color. Her work shifted with the changes in fashion and the post-WWII atmosphere. Bing started using larger scales and isolated subjects, suggesting a detachment from society.

She gave up photography in the late 1950s because she no longer felt satisfied with the expressive power of the medium. Wanting to go beyond the constructs of photography, Bing started writing poetry in German, French, and English, as well as making collages from her old photographs. In the late 1970s, Bing’s work had a revival in numerous museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Kunstverein in Frankfurt.

Bing is an icon of modernist photography, using her artistic expression to capture everyday life in photojournalism and commercial advertising. Her work is still celebrated, as her photographs remain captivating in any context. Key to developments in photographic technology, she was nicknamed the “Queen of Leica” for being one of the first to master the advanced Leica camera. While technically advanced, Bing’s images also show she is creative and accomplished.

Whether it was shooting timeless photographs to preserve the memories of places and moments, working commercially with impressive leaders of the fashion world, or taking up motorcycle riding in her 70s, Bing satisfied her thirst to experience the beautiful ebullience in the world.

Eliza Lewis SC ’17

Wilson Art Administration Intern ’14

]]>Ansel Adams, “Winnowing Grain”http://rcwg.scrippscollege.edu/blog/2017/09/14/ansel-adams-winnowing-grain/
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 17:16:01 +0000http://rcwg.scrippscollege.edu/?p=3175Adams’s photograph, Winnowing Grain, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico, accentuates the sculptural qualities of adobe building: the pueblo’s layered cubic forms, and its deeply shadowed doors and windows. The photograph encourages the viewer’s eye to trace the network of ladders running up through the pueblo’s stories. The brightest point of the photograph, however, is the stream of sunlit chaff spilling from the woman’s basket.

She is winnowing grain, that is, separating chaff from threshed grain by tilting and shaking her grain-filled basket and allowing the wind to blow the chaff away. As cultures worldwide have winnowed grain since the beginning of agriculture, Adams’s photograph documents something ancient and eternal in the heritage of the American West. At the same time, by including domestic details such as a child’s shirt drying on a line, Adams also archives a moment of this woman’s everyday life. Indeed, this photograph seems to show the ordinary world overlapping with something eternal.

Adams’s interest in Taos Pueblo is part of a larger Modernist interest in ancient cultures. Carl Jung came to Taos in 1925 on a quest to uncover authentic early cultures surviving into the Modern period. There, he talked with the chief of the pueblo and “learned how all life flowed from the mountain by way of the river, and how God, the sun, needed the assistance of his people in order for the stability of the cosmos to be maintained.[1] Indeed, pueblo chief Antonio Mirabal told Jung: ”We are a people who live on the roof of the world; we are the sons of the Father Sun, and with our religion we daily help our father to go across the sky. We do this not only for ourselves but for the whole world.”[2] Documenting the ancient practices of Taos Pueblo, Adams seems to be following in Jung’s footsteps and participating in the intellectual discussions of his period.

Inspired by photographer Eugene Atget (1857–1927), who documented Paris’s urban renewal in the 1890s, Abbott set out to record the modernizing of New York in her “Changing New York” series. This photograph comes from her documentation of the Middle East Side, whose landscape at the time mixed both low and high buildings, crafting a dramatic tempo of old Victorian architecture and the new Art Deco structures designed in the city’s 1920s heyday. This photograph exemplifies these changes through contrast. The skyscraper that dominates the left side of the photograph is not the Murray Hill Hotel; the Murray Hill Hotel is the Victorian–style building on the right whose windows and metal balconies are seen. The skyscraper on the left is composed like a landscape before the sky, but the Murray Hill Hotel’s composition seems indebted to modernist photography of the period, offering a close–up, chiaroscuro interrogation of the hotel’s intricate architecture. Abbott’s project both captures the grace and gravity of the novel Art Deco, while also preserving the city’s previous European-influenced identity for future photographers.

Comparing ceramicist Marilyn Levine—who, over the course of 35 years used clay to imitate the form and texture of leather goods—to stand-up comedian George Carlin may at first seem unexpected, but both imbue their art with a working class humor, looking at the mundane and the elite in a wry, chuckling way.

Stand-up comedy has always been associated with blue-collar roots; it is often seen as a non-art developed for vaudeville or seedy clubs, and ceramics likewise has been often demoted from art to craft. But, like Carlin and Richard Pryor in the 1960s, who made stand-up socially relevant and technically sophisticated, the California Clay Movement of the 1950s, spearheaded by Levine’s mentor Peter Voulkos, legitimized the medium as fine art. It is Levine’s triumph then to not only match the technical and conceptual prowess of that generation, but to inject humor and mundaneness associated into a field newly deemed as a serious art form.

In her Los Angeles Times obituary, Levine is described as an “artist/trickster,” and F.M. Case well represents her particular type of art/trick. Her genre, trompe l’oeil, French for “to deceive the eye,” is often associated with the sight gag—Wile E. Coyote painting pristine landscapes in an attempt to catch the Road Runner is one example. In Levine’s F.M. Case, paint is not meant to simulate scenery, but rather the work fools the viewer into mistaking fired clay for leather.

One of the sad parts about this essay is that the work cannot play with the viewer as it might in a physical gallery. Identified via caption as a ceramic, it cannot fool the reader here. But in a gallery space, the object reveals itself slowly with the same build-up as a good joke. Levine evokes both the leather texture of the case and the brass of the snap fasteners, even mimicking the slight sheen that worn-down leather has. From a distance, the work looks no different from works of “found art” popular during the 1970s when Levine got her start. Moreover, her facsimiles are near perfect, down to the weight. The clay is light enough that, should one have the opportunity to hold the artwork, it still fools the hand as much as the eye; it feels like a case. If it could only unfasten, it would be quite a fashionable one at that.

The work consciously mimics trompe l’oeil, an artistic form meant to rebel against representation and the confines of the gallery space. Even before the prank is revealed, a sly humor surrounds it. From afar, it looks nothing like a ceramic, and if exhibited among the monumental ceramic sculptures popular in the California Clay Movement, its outsider nature would draw attention from across the room, luring in those fascinated by something so diminutive hiding among massive peers.

Even as one approaches, the true nature of the object does not necessarily reveal itself. Levine replicates the stitch work in exacting detail. A viewer can easily identify the leather and the brass work as glaze upon close inspection, but the skill necessary to copy thread and stitching is almost unbelievable. Levine’s talent as a miniaturist rivals her ability as a humorist: her needlework is particularly remarkable. Only through detailed examination, or the aid of a wall text or tour guide, can one discover its true nature. The revelation at once prompts embarrassment at being wrong, a bargaining disbelief that makes viewers try (in vain) to prove that it cannot be clay. Joy from the prank follows, and marvel at the technical sophistication ends the experience.

Like any great joke, though, the work also critiques the society that produced it. The legacy of the California Clay Movement has privileged large scale, non-functional works in ceramics shows. By 1983, when this piece was produced, three decades after the California Ceramics Movement and two decades after the start of Levine’s experiments with leather-like clay, ceramics had become increasingly divorced from its original purpose as a medium for functional objects. By marrying clay to leather, a medium firmly planted within the craft tradition, and producing a facsimile of such a commonplace object, Levine reincorporates the utilitarian into clay. Certainly, this case is without everyday use, but neither are the monumental works of Levine’s peers. By placing a utilitarian object into a gallery, Levine’s case really does take after the found art movement: it showcases how much high art in the 80s had divorced itself from the common lives of working and middle class people.

For all of this talk of criticism of art trends, one shouldn’t lose focus on the humor. This clay case has a wacky, pop-art sensibility, similar to Jeff Koons’s balloon dogs made of metal. Levine does more than trick and fool; she makes clay as intimate and relatable to the viewer as a joke from a good friend.

Ansel Adams wanted to capture the motion of landscape in an inherent static medium, photography. Through patience alone, Adams could document time’s passage across the natural world. This photograph was taken in the fifth morning that he shot the rising sun over the Sierra Nevada. Only on this fifth occasion did the lighting perfectly capture both the vast, mountainous landscape in the foreground while casting a beautiful shadow across the land in the foreground. This quality makes the Sierra Nevada tremendous: it, not Adams, controls the lighting in this photography, dictating how one sees the landscape. In Adams’s photography, one can only admire the enduring qualities of nature by looking at the fleeting, here represented by a horse grazing in a spot of light, and a sunrise five mornings in the making.

George Hurrell produced the definitive Hollywood glamour shot, codifying the style during his decades long career—his later work included album covers for Queen and Paul McCartney. Marlene Dietrich had already cemented her superstar status, crafting a persona as an exotic German seducer (1901-1992) through her many film roles, and Hurrell’s photography heightens and reinforces this image through her confrontational gaze and the sleek texture of her flowing dress. But Hurrell did not simply aim to record the stars; he collaborated with them to produce their ideal public image. Hurrell found working with Dietrich a particular frustration, stating that she posed for every shot, making it impossible for him to capture a candid portrait. This photograph then is not just a glamorous shot with a famous star and famous photographer, but a product of contrasting authors, each with diverging opinions on what made a star a star.